


Fearless

by Sasha713



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s08e18 Threads, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-06
Updated: 2012-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:26:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sasha713/pseuds/Sasha713
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Threads mix of scenes...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fearless

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my awesome Beta, LBindner, and to Joke. Thanks for the read through guys :D

 

The moment she saw the unfamiliar woman standing the General’s office, she had felt an odd swooping sensation in her chest which immediately ended in her stomach. She felt a moment of odd detachment as he smiled at her, and she was left with the thought of “What have I walked in on here?”

She had momentarily forgotten the pertinent fact that she had no real right to ask such a question and that the General had every right to talk to any woman he wanted. He was the commander of the SGC, and there was no room for jealousy here.

She had moved on.

Right?

If so, then why was she suddenly feeling like he was betraying her at this moment? Because that conversation she was watching like some intrusive voyeur did not seem just about business.

For one, the woman was blushing.

Sure the General seemed completely unruffled by the woman’s presence, but…he was flirting with her.

_Pete, remember_.

Pete. _Right_.

She bit into her bottom lip, hating that she had been compelled to come up here now. Like the cosmos wanted her to see that she wasn’t the only one on this base that was getting a life. That Jack O’Neill wasn’t likely to stay single. He was an attractive man after all. Any woman would be lucky to… _dammit_.

She was not having this conversation with herself.

She wanted to turn away from the sight of the two within the supposedly private confines of his office, and she felt like she was on the outside of some profound moment looking in, when she had always thought she would be _involved_ in that kind of moment with Jack.

_Pete_.

She turned away.

 

****

Jack caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He was trained to spot such a thing. A movement in his periphery. He felt a sinking feeling when he caught a flash of blonde, turning his attention back to Agent Johnson who had just said something which he should have been listening to.

He smiled at her and cleared his throat.

“Sorry…”

“I guess you have a lot on your mind.” She said with way too much amicable understanding in her voice.

“Yeah…I do.” He responded, knowing it was no excuse for drifting away from the conversation the moment he had realised they were being watched.

By Samantha Carter.

He felt a stab of bittersweet loss, which was stupid, because she wasn’t going anywhere. _Yet_.

“So…you mentioned dinner?” He asked, raising a brow, his brain finally recognising the jumble of words Kerry had spoken in his distraction.

“I did. Interested?” She asked, a beat of uncertainty in her eyes which had been void before. This woman wasn’t one to feel insecure or needy, and this little give in her exterior told him a fair bit. Maybe he shouldn’t lead her on.

Instead of letting her down gently however, he found himself saying, “Can never say no to dinner.”

“And the company?” She asked. In other words, would it just be dinner to him, or a deeper interest.

He hesitated.

“Does anyone really like eating alone?” he asked, realising that this woman probably did so more often than not unless it was with colleagues.

_Careful Jack_.

She smiled and looked down almost shyly, and Jack ignored the guilt he felt, knowing that he wasn’t doing anything wrong by dating this beautiful and intelligent woman who was decidedly _not_ out of his reach like the woman hesitating in the briefing room. He closed the door as Kerry left, and turned, feigning surprise at seeing Sam loitering almost awkwardly in the other room. He waved her in. He wasn’t going to act like he was in the wrong. He wasn’t going to listen to the voice in his head that reminded him about the fact that Sam had moved on from the forbidden notion of _them_ probably a long time ago so why shouldn’t he.

Business as usual.

 

****

Sam wasn’t sure what made her suggest it. Why she had suddenly thought that Pete, whom she had kept removed from her life at the SGC, should meet her father. She had stumbled through the request, trying not to feel compelled to glance away awkwardly as she had put the idea to the General. To allow a civilian onto the base. Her _fiancée_.

She hated to think that maybe her request was a silent communication to Jack that she was really doing this. Getting married. That her witness of whatever she’d seen that morning in his office wasn’t bothering her as much as she knew it was.

_Who was that?_

_Kerry Johnson. CIA._

He had looked at her a little blankly when she had rushed through her request, before he had smiled slightly and given her his agreement, signing off on the necessary form she had been clutching in her hand waiting for his signature, as if a part of her had thought that maybe he would deny her. But what reason would he have to deny her this?

None.

He had Kerry Johnson now. And she was getting married. And Pete would meet her father and everything would be…absolutely _fine_.

 

****

Jack couldn’t help but glance at Carter as she stood awkwardly at the other end of the briefing room on the _urgent_ phone call that truly couldn’t be that urgent in comparison to what was classed thus at the SGC. He listened to Teal’c and Brat’ac talk about the weapon on Dakara, finding it somewhat unnerving that he could so easily multitask, listening to both conversations at once and responding to what the males around the table were now saying without detection, although, by the way that Jacob kept glancing at him sideways, he had to come to the conclusion that he may very well be more transparent than he had initially thought.

He attempted to feign disinterest as she got off the phone, looking like there was some great boulder sitting on her shoulders that just wouldn’t be displaced.

“Emergency?” He forced himself to ask, ignoring the glance that he felt cast his way from Jacob’s direction, keeping his eyes on Carter while he started to gather the papers that had been spread out in front of him, merely a hedging technique so he could just _talk_ to Carter.

“No, no. Just a, uh, misunderstanding.” She replied, looking tense and like at any moment she would just explode from some inward press of pressure. He didn’t want to wonder. Didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to overstep the careful bounds that they had forced between them that transcended the barriers they had built up years earlier. This was different. It wasn’t just force shield thrown up. This was an opaque wall, and for the life of him, no matter how hard he tried to keep his eyes from the impenetrable surface to try and see what was beyond, he _couldn’t_. He wasn’t going to ruin this for her. Especially seeing as she deserved to be happy with a worthy man. A man that was never going to be him.

Not that he had ever disillusioned himself into thinking it ever _could_ be him. Years of self-deprecation insisted he was the most unworthy of them all. _Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most unworthy of them all..._.

He saw the tension in Carter ratchet up as Jacob mentions some florist meeting with Pete, and Jack tried to ignore the less-than-subtle attempt at communication Carter tried to relay to her father. He suspected that it was some bid to keep him out of the loop in everything regarding her impending doom…uh, _wedding_.

He played ignorant for her sake, because the last thing he wanted was for her to be even more uncomfortable around him. They did enough of that on their own since Pete popped up into her life. Jacob’s words did nothing but force him to pretend he didn’t see the pained expression on Carter’s face as she was forced to discuss her wedding in front of him.

Like he didn’t already know what it all meant. Like he _needed_ the reminder.

“Go ahead, Carter.” He found himself saying, trying – _attempting_ \- to underscore her obvious discomfort, wondering faintly why her father seemed so intent on not receiving her glaring hint to shut up. “Go pick flowers.”

He retreated,  realising after he had entered his office that his comment had perhaps seemed a little bit too off-handed and nonchalant, almost brightly so, and he wondered if she had picked up on the condescension that had been marring his voice.

He really should have learnt how to address the issue of her wedding, but, since her awkward request for permission to allow Pete on base to meet Jacob, Jack hadn’t expected to be placed in another situation that concerned her upcoming nuptials so soon. _Ill-prepared_.

He sighed.

 

****

Jack wasn’t sure what he expected when Jacob stepped into his office and settled down wearily into the chair across from him with a suffering sigh, his legs stretched out before him and his hands linked over his middle.

“Jacob.” Jack greets warily, knowing that he should be wary of the older man who had been influenced dramatically by the Tok’ra that now resided within him. Jack wasn’t seeing the Tok’ra right now though; he was seeing… _a father_.

“Sometimes I wonder when to say the wrong things and when to keep my mouth shut, because lord knows, I never manage to say the _right_ things. Not to Sammi anyway.” He said, his eyes dim on some other moment in time, before he lifted his head and looked at Jack with a furrowed brow.

Jack didn’t say anything, unsure if saying something would be in his best interests. How was he supposed to tell Carter’s _father_ that he, her CO, could relate to feeling like he was always on the verge of saying something that could potentially pack more thickness in the air that was like a tangible barrier between them?

“Something on your mind, Jake?” He asked instead, tapping his pen a few times on the form he was so not concentrating on reading before dropping it down and leaning back in his important General’s chair, regarding Jacob carefully.

He looked _worn_. More worn than Jack had ever seen him, rings under his eyes that hinted at a lack of sleep. Jack wasn’t sure whether he should read into that.

“Have you met him?” Jacob asked after a drawn out moment of staring at him like he was trying to mentally fit him together like pieces of one of those impossible puzzles that ended up unfinished in the closet. Jack knew that Pete had been on the base today. It was clear to Jack that Jacob had met the man and had…formed an opinion?

“Met who?” He asked obliviously.

Jacob smiled wryly before he rubbed a hand over his jaw and sighed again.

“Have I ever told you about my wife?” He asked instead of answering the question, back-tracking to a safer topic. Jack would have been relieved had it not been for the fact that he knew this man well, and knew that he had a strategy and there was definitely something he had come here for. Something he was determined to say before some perceived deadline.

“No, you haven’t.” Jack responded, keeping his expression purposefully neutral. He had never heard Jacob say much about anything personal. Especially not about his wife and her untimely death when Sam had been a teenager. Jack knew of course, about _Mrs_ Carter from Sam and from the files, but Jacob had never openly discussed her with Jack.

Now he was starting to feel a bite of concern. Like Jacob was running towards some cliff and was shouting back at him about something important before he inevitably tumbled over that edge. Jack wasn’t completely certain he would even be able to translate Jacob’s meaning.

Jack didn’t move, watching Jacob patiently for the punch line to his impromptu visit. He waited.

Jacob’s expression softened for a moment as he considered what Jack assumed was his wife, the slight whimsical smile that tipped his mouth one of fondness and memories that he would never allow himself to forget.

Jack watched him with a note of longing sparking inside him, unable to fathom feeling something so _essential_ about someone else like Jacob obviously felt about his late wife. Not something he was willing to admit or give in to outside his own chaotic brain anyway.

From that one expression on Jacob’s face as he lost himself to his memories, Jack could imagine that Elizabeth Carter had been quite spectacular. Just like her daughter.

“Sammi’s mother…” Jacob began, shaking himself and glanced down at his linked hands. “She was everything that I wasn’t. Smart. Talented. Beautiful. Unbelievably courageous.”

He paused, a wry, nostalgic smile tipping his lips before he continued. “I definitely didn’t deserve her, but, for some unfathomable reason, she _loved_ me.”

Jacob looked completely bewildered by that fact and Jack leaned back, listening silently as this reticent and respected man before him spoke about something that must be close to his heart. Jack felt unworthy of hearing these things about a woman he had never known, but seemed so achingly familiar when Jacob explained her and the affect she had clearly had on the worn General/Tok’ra.

“I was never really worthy of that love, because Lord knows I disappointed her on more than one occasion. On a regular basis actually. Despite my flaws though, she loved _me_. She made me a better man.” Jacob pinned Jack with a clear and steady look, as if trying to tell him something of great importance which he had no intention of _actually_ revealing, instead relying on a sharp subtly, depending on Jack to read between the threads of what he was saying and what he wasn’t to understand the point he was making.

Jacob was looking at him like he saw something of _himself_ there in the lines Jack had drawn around himself. The line that kept him from really believing anything was possible between himself and _Carter_.

“I never felt worthy of her, but, I didn’t realise until much later, maybe when it was _too_ late, that it had never really mattered what _I_ thought or felt about my own worthiness. She didn’t see me the way I saw myself. She saw more in me than I ever saw in myself or let myself see. She never saw unworthiness or darkness or any of the things that made me underserving of her.”

Jacob sat up a little straighter, glancing around the office for a moment as Jack picked up the pen again, needing something to do with his hands so he didn’t feel this mounting awkwardness at the fact that he _knew_ without doubt Jacob was indeed getting to something that had more to do with Sam and less to do with her mother. He proved him right on the next sentence.

“Sam is so much like her mother. _So much_. That fearlessness. That utter belief in people’s goodness.” Jacob smiled slightly, his eyes haunted as he thought of his daughter. Jack had always had the impression that Sam’s fearlessness would have been a very difficult adaptation for Jacob when she’d been growing up. She would have been a handful.

“I have always believed that she deserves the best that life has to offer, and I know that, whatever that is, she’ll find it in her own way in her own time. Even if that _someone_ isn’t really worthy.”

Jack caught Jacob’s gaze at that, trying to ignore the way he seemed so _sure_ of his words, so positive that whatever flawed entity Carter chose to link herself to, Jacob had the utmost confidence that she would make her decision based on what _she_ saw and not on what her father saw.

Jack feigned ignorance anyway.

“What are you trying to say here, Jacob?” He asked mildly, flipping the pen between his fingers before placing it back down carefully on the stack of paperwork in front of him before he started tapping it furiously in a bid to distract Jacob’s attention off this conversation and back into the safe zone. He doubted that the older man would be that easily derailed however.

“I’m just saying that it’s not about the wrongs or the flaws –it’s about her heart and her feelings. What _she_ wants no matter what I think of the whole entire thing. Her judgement has never been great in the past. Even now, she tends to gravitate towards companions who are… _lacking_ ,” he grimaced. “…but I think, at the moment, the one real choice she wants to make isn’t really an option given the circumstances –despite this _person_ being the most unworthy SOB out there.”

Jacob’s eyes were too knowing, too avidly focused on his reaction to his words, and Jack knew that he wasn’t talking about Pete Shanahan. Funny, Jack had never thought he would be lectured by Jacob Carter about his intentions towards Sam. He’d thought he was past the point of a parent stepping in to ensure their daughter was given the respect deserving of them. Too old to feel this amount of uncertainty when faced with these things coming from Jacob’s lips.

He wasn’t going to let the older man know that he got his meaning however, much more comfortable playing the idiot. Avoidance tactic.

“I’m sure that Shanahan will grow on you, Jake.” He responded mildly after a moment of contemplation on how to address Jacob’s clear message. He couldn’t let himself consider it too deeply. More out of self-preservation than anything if he was honest with himself …and he so rarely was.

Jacob cast him his patented patient smile, as if he knew very well that Jack wasn’t as dense as he made out. He really had to work on his delivery.

The Tok’ra stood up, smiling ruefully, that disturbing dim tiredness sneaking back into his unwavering gaze.

“All I’m saying is that this particular man’s perceived unworthiness shouldn’t get in the way of Sam’s happiness. Because, in the end, that’s all that matters, and, if you ask me, biased or not, he’s a lucky bastard for having her love. Maybe he should quit being stupid and realise that he could lose her if he’s not careful.”

Jacob smiled once more at the look Jack knew must be pasted on his face, and he stepped out of his office, closing the door with a soft click, leaving Jack in the silence.

Well.

Jacob hadn’t pulled any punches.

He picked up his pen again –but instead of getting back to the piles of paperwork cluttering his desk, he found himself distracted, thinking about all the things he had sworn to himself long ago to keep locked away in a cob-webbed part of his brain.

 

****

It wasn’t until much later, as he stepped into the isolation room where Carter sat alone watching Jacob succumb to his fate that Jack finally allowed himself to contemplate Jacob’s meaning in his office. Funny how it took the man’s ultimate demise to get Jack to sit up and smell the proverbial roses, facing things that he had somehow convinced himself would never be necessary to face.

Was the pain Carter was showing right now as she sat almost numbly gazing down at her only surviving parent something he could stand by and watch from the sidelines like any professional CO really should, or was it something he could potentially help her deal with? Should he overstep that boundary they had erected, erasing the lines that had been drawn?

He was having a hard time ignoring the truth of this thing arcing between them, especially when, out of some cosmic torch shining on the blatant truth of the matter, he was continuously reminded of what exactly he could be giving up by trying to keep things the same as he had for the last 8 years.

_“Is the Air Force the only thing keeping you two apart? Rules and regulations? Kerry said from the doorway, her eyes blazing with some indignant determination._ _  
  
“And you know what I should do?” He asked, finally considering the fact that this thing with Kerry could have potentially been some unflinching reaction to Carter’s engagement and closing wedding which Jacob’s words had only intensified like some desperate reminder in his gut._

_“Retire.” She replied succinctly, like it was the simplest solution. A solution he should have considered by now, in her humble opinion she seemed only just shy of throwing at him._ __

_“Again.” Jack said with a brow raised at her uncomplicated and somewhat naïve suggestion._ __

_“Don't get me wrong -- you are considered invaluable to the programme by the Pentagon, but the President has appointed a civilian to run the S.G.C. before.” She eases off, smiling slightly, wryly, looking over him one last time, as if she’d never considered the possibility that she would be giving him objective advice on his complicated love-life, or lack thereof._

_“Just a thought.” She said before she stepped out of his office and his life, leaving in her wake more unhealthy and depressing contemplations that closely resembled the lecture Jacob carter himself had given only a few days earlier in this very same office._

Watching Carter now, fighting the grief that was starting to rise up alone here in this quiet, desolate room, he wasn’t sure that everything hadn’t been building up to some profound moment that fate wouldn’t let him pass by. He hesitated, but, like some magnetic force, he made himself take those steps. Just like she had when she had shown up his house, bravely intent on telling him something that he knew had been bordering on the forbidden in a nervous moment of regret she had.

_Smart. Talented. Beautiful. Unbelievably courageous._

_Fearless._

“You okay?” he asked, sitting down beside her, watching as she became aware of his presence, her eyes drifting up to his, the redness there and the clear, watery depths taking him in as she nodded, her eyes straying back down to where her father lay quietly talking to the Tok’ra who had come to say their goodbyes.

“Actually, I'm fine. Good, even, strange as that sounds. I thought I lost him six years ago. Since then, we've been closer than we ever were in my whole life. In a way, Selmak gave me the father I never thought I'd know.”

He wasn’t sure what to make of her softly spoken words, her voice holding the evidence of her tears which had for now stopped falling. He looked at her, wondering how much of her words were a show of her strength and how much was her just trying to justify losing her father.

“C'mere.” He murmured after a long moment, knowing that now, right now, he didn’t have to consider or think things over to know that he _wanted_ to be here for her, comfort her in this moment of her greatest pain. Of losing her father. It wasn’t about what he should or shouldn’t do. Wasn’t about her upcoming wedding or his failure at establishing a relationship with Kerry. It was just about her.

_I’m just saying that it’s not about the wrongs or the flaws –it’s about her heart and her feelings._

He reached up, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, noticing the way she didn’t even hesitate to take his hand in hers, relaxing into his shoulder, taking what was offered without thought or question, her thumb rubbing across the back of his hand almost unconsciously as they sat and look down on her father. He felt a little numb as he stared down at the man who had just yesterday lectured him on the fact that he was letting his own unworthiness get in the way of Sam’s happiness.

He wasn’t going to pretend that Jacob hadn’t been referring to him anymore. It seemed silly now to even try. There was no mystery here anymore. Not when it came to his feelings and what he wanted to do about them. But, as in all things, he wasn’t going to make this decision for her. He would wait for her.

“Thank you, Sir.” She said, her voice a little raw as she squeezed his hand, her eyes not shifting from Jacob even though he knew she was more aware of him beside her given the tension in her shoulders.

“For what?” He asked, needing her to tell him. To say the things that maybe shouldn’t be said.

“For being here for me.” She replied, and he could hear the emotion in her voice, could hear the way it trembled around the words she spoke, like she thought he could possibly want to be anywhere else but right here beside her right now.

“Always.” He promised softly, taking in her profile, not bothering to put any distance between them.

He knew that things could never be as simple as Kerry had put it, but, in this moment, it almost felt like it _could_ be that simple. He would be here for her always, no matter what. If she married Pete. If she didn’t. If he retired. If he didn’t. None of that mattered, and as he watched Jacob die, seeing the grief radiate from Carter as she went to his bedside, the soft goodbye between father and daughter piercing through the glass right into him, the pain he felt like a channelled entity between himself and her, he realised the wisdom of Jacob’s words.

He could never forget them.

 

****

 

Sitting here, in Jack’s driveway, contemplating what she would say to him if she just could work up the nerve to get out of the car, Sam Carter felt like this moment was a lot like Déjà vu. She’d been here before, doing just this, afraid of not talking to him but equally as fearful of actually standing before him and broaching the subject that had become like some twisted taboo between them.

Now, however, she wasn’t worrying over what she would be saying to Jack. She was…numb.

A lot had happened since she had sat in this very spot only a few days earlier. Her father had died. Her relationship with Pete had dissolved right along with him. Her life was turned inside out, and yet so much had stayed the same.

If she was honest with herself, Pete had never really been integrated into her life properly. Like she had suspected that it wouldn’t last from the get go and that accepting the relationship as a permanent part of her life would be nothing more than a delusion. Tempting fate.

Too much threatened her normalcy, and for a while, with him, she had been able to come home and pretend that she _was_ normal. She wasn’t some prized scientist depended upon for quick fixes and calculations. She wasn’t a Lt. Colonel with great responsibility. Those things, of course made up very important aspects of who she was, and she _liked_ who she was.

But she never got to be the woman.

Never just got to be Sam.

Her attempt at being with Pete and having normal with his house and his dog and his yellow kitchen hadn’t been wrong. It had been _necessary_.

Because she’d seen what she had and what she wanted in a whole new perspective, and it had become clear to her that the life that she had assumed she _should_ want was not the life she necessarily _wanted_. She’d wanted to be the daughter that her father could be proud of.

Prove that she _could_ be the soldier. She _could_ be the scientist. And she _could_ get married and have that family.

But he had seen right through her. He had seen and he had known that the life she was _supposed_ to want and the life she actually wanted were two very different things. She guessed that, in part, her father was the reason why she had come here, intent on attempting something she had failed so miserably at the first time. _‘If at first you don’t succeed, try try again’_.

_He had known_.

So why had it taken her so long to figure that out?

Wasn’t she supposed to be a _genius_?

Sam sat there in the darkness, contemplating everything. Over thinking things yet at the same time not really thinking at all.

There were so many differences between now and the first time she had been sitting here. One, she wasn’t working up the nerve to open her car door and walk up to his porch. She wasn’t nervous or trying to figure out exactly what she was going to say to the man currently inside.

She was just… _sitting_.

And she wasn’t even sure what step came next.

“You gonna sit out here all night?” A voice asked from the side of her car and she didn’t even have to look up to know it was Jack. She knew that he was too aware to _not_ notice her sitting out here in the middle of the night like some stalker.

“Was thinking about it.” She said with a sigh, glancing out her open window to find him standing there with his hands in his pockets casually, eyes watching her a little too avidly, like he was expecting her to break apart at any second.

He sighed and turned, leaning back against the side of her car at the join of the driver’s side door and the back door, and she glanced out to see that he was staring off towards his yard.

“This isn’t exactly what I planned.” She said softly, and the silence outside her car made her wonder if he had even heard her words, or if she was even talking to him or herself. Or maybe she was just talking to her dad.

“I don’t think anything ever goes as planned… _usually_.” Jack responded calmly, his voice hushed in the darkness.

He was right of course. Was she willing to readjust her plans to adapt to what she had to face? Cultivate a ‘Plan B’ out of the remnants of her undisclosed ‘Plan A’?

“He spoke to me about your mother.” He said after a moment and Sam felt frozen with that confession, his words jolting her, because she had never known her father to open up to anyone about her mother. Not her. Not Mark.

He always had kept his words carefully veiled, and maybe that was her fault, seeing as her mother’s death had been such a touchy subject for many years, and her father had never wanted to disrupt the peace that had formed between them.

She had thought so much had changed since he had become a Tok’ra, but, that aspect of their relationship had never shifted. And yet, he had spoken to Jack about something that she had never gotten to hear.

“When?” She asked, feeling raw –her emotions rising up once more even though she had convinced herself that she had run out of tears to cry. _Guess you’ve been wrong about a few pretty profound things lately, huh Sam?_

“Few days ago.” He didn’t offer her anything more, and she closed her eyes, tempted to lean forward and place her head on the steering wheel, rest in this moment, allow the utter exhaustion warring at her limbs to take over instead of trying to remain unwavering.

“He never…” She swallowed back the tears that threatened, taking a breath, exhaling to try to control the mounting pressure that was materialising and congealing in her chest, pressing. “…spoke about her much after…everything. I guess he found it too hard.”

She couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t exactly been easy on him. Cold. Wooden. _Unyielding_. Her memories of her own pain and the blame she cast onto her father for her mother’s accidental death taking away fundamental parts of their relationship.

“She loved him.” Jack said calmly, and she turned, seeing his features in the pale light, his eyes fixed on some spot above them in the night sky, seeming to be quietly contemplating the constellations.

“More than he deserved.” She responded almost on instinct. Her father had never been there for her mother. Always putting duty before his wife, but, she knew that Jacob Carter had loved her mother more than his own life. She knew because she had seen. Despite her disappointment and despite him never being there, she had loved him. More than he deserved.

“It was never about him.” Jack responded, and Sam suddenly got the insane idea that this conversation wasn’t really about her mother and father. It was about something much more close to home.

“It should have been about both of them.” She replied pointedly, her mind working too fast for her to actually rein any of her thoughts in.

They stayed silent for a few long moments before Jack pressed himself off the side of her car, standing upright. He had never been able to stay still for long without getting restless, so she wasn’t shocked by his movement.

“Feel like a beer?” he asked casually, motioning towards his darkened house, the only light coming from the light that enveloped the deck at the side of his house. The same deck that she had witnessed his foray into a relationship with Miss. CIA.

She wasn’t sure she was ready for that. To try this again, despite the telling fact that she was parked, frozen in his driveway.

“Maybe…maybe something stronger.” She responded, determined to follow this through. Whatever this was.

“Drinking isn’t the answer.” He said mildly, and she smiled ruefully, before she opened the driver side door and stepped out onto the driveway, meeting his gaze.

“No, but since when is there ever an easy answer to anything?” She murmured, the cool breeze that swept over her as she stood outside her car a welcome relief from the feeling of oppressive walls closing around her from the SGC and the dramatic events that had been unfolding like some cosmic ending that was just around that elusive corner.

“It’s only complicated if you make it complicated.”

Sam lifted her gaze to the stars that stretched out across the clear sky, wondering a little foolishly if her parents were together somewhere out there, watching over her. Her scientific mind dictated that it wasn’t possible. Not without ascension anyway. But, despite the facts built up against it, she wanted to believe they were out there, watching, waiting. Looking out for her. _Guiding_ her.

“Do you think…” She trailed off, realising how foolish her thoughts were. She shouldn’t voice them.

“What?” he asked in that gentle way he had, and she turned, seeing the open expression on his face as he looked at her calmly. She opened her mouth, a ‘Never mind, Sir’ on the edge of her tongue. She smiled in self-deprecation before turning slightly away, looking down at her hands as she rubbed the spot where Pete’s ring had sat only hours earlier.

“It’s…childish.” She admitted with a shrug, glancing once more at his impassive face, his eyes brightened slightly by the moonlight filtering down to them from the sky. He raised one brow at her words, as if to say ‘remember who you’re talking to, Carter’. A smile tugged at her lips in answer.

“I just…” she caved, “…wonder if he’s up there somewhere…with my mother.”

“There’s no place he would rather be, Carter. Believe me.” He said lowly, and she met his gaze, seeing all the things she had never hoped to see reflected in his eyes. His expression revealed how _sure_ he was. Like there was never a question, and she felt like his message was just for her. Just for them. His meaning was clear.

They both stood side by side, leaning against the side of her Volvo, close enough for their shoulders to be brushing, his hands tucked deep into his pockets, her arms wrapped around herself as they gazed upwards.

She sighed, and then breathed deeply of the night, taking in the feel of him standing right there next to her, like he had promised. _Always_.

To her, this moment felt… _right_.

She hadn’t felt this rightness in a very long time. And it was a relief.

“Hey, you know what would be better than beer?” He asked, nudging her with his elbow, his tone light. She looked at him, catching his eyes which were shining with mirth, the sly smirk he cast her direction sending her stomach swooping to her knees.

“No, what?” She asked, humouring him.

“Fishing.” He stated with a lift of his shoulder. She stared at him for a moment, her mind whirling with possibility and uncertainty.

“Fishing?” She asked, feeling like something had suddenly slipped into place with them when before they had been sitting slightly apart, like tectonic plates that had finally just slotted back together after an earthquake had dislodged them.

“ _Oh yes_.” He said with his usual flare, brows lifting slightly before he grinned. “You see, there’s this little lake I know where the bass grow this…” He stretched out his arms.

“It sounds great, Sir.” She said firmly, his words cut off short as he stood there, his eyes lighting with seriousness as he dropped his arms, looking a little surprised for a moment before he schooled his features.

“You mean, you’ll _come_?” He asked with awe, eyes assessing her features.

She smiled at him, nudging him with her shoulder. “No place I’d rather be.”

Now she knew exactly what the next step was. _You can still have everything you want_.

Her father’s words echoed in her head and she exhaled, finally feeling calm.

_Thanks, Dad._

.fin.


End file.
